


Unnatural

by Delta (LevyDelta)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Autistic Julian Bashir, Butterflies, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Identity Issues, Neurodiversity, Past Medical Abuse, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-11-28 20:45:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18213404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LevyDelta/pseuds/Delta
Summary: Julian has just discovered what his parents did to him on Adigeon Prime, and he is Not Happy™, but a tiny change can make a big difference. This time he chooses to read the DSM to calm down, and what he finds reshapes how he sees who he is and what was done to him.





	Unnatural

**Author's Note:**

> Julian Bashir is autistic.  
> (You Can't) Change My Mind

_SLAM!_

The sound the door made was oddly satisfying, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to scream or destroy everything in his path. Maybe both.

 _Monster_.

_You made me this—!_

_Grateful_ , they actually expected him to feel _grateful_ because they had risked prison to ‘ _fix_ ’ him. He felt like vomiting. He settled for slamming his fist against the wall instead.

 _Freak_.

This was why dad— _no,_ **_Father_** —always bragged about his son’s accomplishments as if they were his own. He’d always felt like he was more of a trophy than a child. Now they were angry at him for not being _grateful_.

**_I didn’t ask to be made!_ **

He couldn’t remember having ever felt this _angry_ before. He glared at the fancy books his father was so fond of boasting that he’d already read and understood. With a cry, he pulled his arm back and shoved them to the ground with all of strength. The books went flying across the room, farther than he suspected he ought to have been able to send them. One of them lay with the pages bent, trapped underneath.

He snatched his arm back, clutching it against his chest in horror. _I’m sorry!_ It was too late. He couldn’t take that moment back. _What if it had been a person? What if you had lost your temper while you were still downstairs? You can’t afford to get angry like this_. He breathed deeply, and glanced sheepishly at Kukalaka. “I’m sorry.” Kukalaka stared back understandingly.

He started cleaning up, gently lifting and inspecting each book, as though tenderness now would somehow make up for the cruelty he’d shown earlier.

He lifted the last book, an old edition of the _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders_. Time seemed to hold still. He wasn’t sure whether the compulsion to open it was due to some twisted desire to punish himself or a desire to feel a connection to other people society had deemed to be wrong. _It doesn’t matter_ , he decided. He needed a distraction.

He settled in to read it with Kukalaka perched on his lap and started flipping through the pages, reading each entry. Like anyone reading the DSM, he assessed himself as he went, and naturally, some entries were more relatable than others. Less than halfway through the book, he stumbled onto something that felt like…him, like someone had been watching all those little things he had always done wrong—even the urges he mostly managed to resist now—and written them down. He stared at the page in shock, then flipped furiously through the book. ‘… _not better explained by_ …’

It wasn’t. _My god_. He flipped back to the page that felt more like a _mirror_ than a piece of paper. He set the book and his bear down at his desk and switched on the terminal.

‘… _autistic_ …’

‘… _with comorbid developmental and learning disorders_ …’

‘… _part of the spectrum of human neurodiversity_ …’

‘… _repetitive motion called stimming_ …’

‘… _special interest_ …’

‘… _meltdown_ …’

‘… _pass as neurotypical_ …’

An hour was gone before he was even aware that time had passed.

 _This is why_.

It was a strange feeling, to be simultaneously proud and ashamed of the same thing. It was easy to conclude that he didn’t want his parents to know—they had already tried to train his autistic tendencies out of him, going a step beyond what most such parents did and trying to actually find a ‘cure’—but everyone else? He didn’t want them to know either, and he didn’t know how to feel about that.

 _You were trying to ‘fix’ me_ … “But I wasn’t broken…”

It seemed that others felt the same. Even those society seemed to have accepted tried to make eye contact more than was comfortable for them and to keep from engaging in certain stims. It seemed ironic that autistic people were the ones expected to accommodate neurotypicals. It seemed even more so that neurotypicals complained about being made to occasionally make a single accommodation for one person while decrying the autistic people who accommodated them constantly as ‘rigid’.

He looked at the symbols being used to represent autistic people. There was the puzzle piece, still the most prominent because it was championed by allistic people despite centuries of autistic people asking them to stop. There was the infinity symbol, but that could also represent neurodiversity in general. The butterfly… How perfect. How incredibly fitting! He almost laughed. Was that little boy, Jules, his caterpillar? He had changed, true, but there was continuity between himself and Jules within their chrysalis, even if they were so different as to be unrecognizable now.

_If he was 'Jules', then who am I?_

The door handle turned. Reacting faster than he probably should have been able to, he shut down his searches and looked over his shoulder. _I didn’t invite you in_.

His mother poked her face around the door. “Jules?”

 _No, he’s…gone_. He didn’t respond. _I need a name_.

“I just wanted to see how you were.”

 _How the h*** do you think I am? You just told me you killed me when I was a child because I wasn’t living up to your expectations! I wasn’t a good enough trophy, so you replaced me!_ He looked down. “What was he like?”

“Who?”

“Jules. That little boy you took to the hospital. What was he like?”

She looked confused. “He was you.”

 _But he wasn’t. Not until you forced him to be_. “That doesn’t answer the question.”

“You were very sweet. You always wanted everyone to be happy. I had to watch you falling farther and farther behind each day and worry that it was my fault. We wanted what was best for you, to give you a better life.”

 _It’s not better though. It’s just different. Why couldn’t you just have accepted me the way I was?_ He had to know. “Did you speak to people involved in special education?”

“Of course we did. We tried everything.”

“What did they say?”

“The school assigned you a special tutor. It helped, but…”

“But?”

“We wanted more than just a life of remedial education for you. We wanted you to have the best life you could have.”

 _Maybe I wanted that life_. He felt the urge to punch her. _Don’t get angry_. “And now we’ll never know who I could have been.”

“You couldn’t have been what you are now.”

 _You don’t understand! I might want to be more now, but I didn’t then! I just wanted to understand the things everyone else did, and maybe I would have gotten there eventually if you’d just given me the accommodations I needed instead of trying to ‘_ ** _cure_** _’ me. It’s true: superior ability breeds superior ambition_. “I didn’t need to be.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset. We’ve given you a better life than you could have had otherwise.”

“You don’t know that.” _Even if my life would have seemed worse from your perspective, I wouldn’t have felt that way. All_ **_I_** _ever_ _wanted was for you to not think I was such a disappointment. Couldn't you have given me that without me having to change at all?_

She shook her head. “Maybe you’ll understand when you’re older.” _Maybe **you** will_. “But as your mom, I love you anyway.”

He let her hug him goodbye without moving. _You’re not my mom. You were his, and you failed him_.

* * *

He’d chosen a red shirt today. It wasn’t his favorite color, but it felt good to wear it, like he was making some statement of resistance. He didn't think he was ready for anyone else to know yet, and he hadn’t been officially diagnosed anyway, but it felt amazing to show it off in a way he knew no one else would be able to see.

As he approached the school, he spotted his friend. “Hey, George.”

“Jules!”

“Actually, speaking of that.” He took a deep breath. “I was…thinking about what you said about ‘Jules’ being a kid’s name, and…you’re not wrong. I’m not that little kid anymore.” _Just…in a very different way from what you meant when you said it_. “I think I want to go by ‘Julian’ now.”

George laughed. “Okay. Julian.”

Julian smiled. “I’m sure my parents will keep calling me ‘Jules’ anyway, but…”

“You’ll always be their little boy?”

He laughed. _Not even close. They made sure of that_. “Something like that.”

They walked into the school building together, and Julian smiled to himself. He was a butterfly. Perhaps, one day, he would find a butterfly house.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! By a show of kudos and comments, who wants me to try to rewrite the whole series on the theme of the butterfly effect? A butterfly flaps its wings 3 times, and the future of the galaxy changes.
> 
> It would be called "Butterfly House" because Julian's butterfly house _is_ Deep Space Nine.  
> I promise to make it ~300% more gay with Garashir endgame.  
> I also ship Lenara Kahn/Jadzia Dax, and I _will_ be revolutionizing Trill society. Fight me about it.  
> Also, Tekeny Ghemor is a good dad and did not deserve to die.


End file.
